Tony Can't Keep His Mouth Shut
by Dalekwizard
Summary: See above. But at least he's too tired to do it more often. T for a bit of mild cussing and if I continue the series, it'll have at least papercuts. Which bleed.


"Close it!" Steve – No, Captain America – barked the command in a heavy voice. The Black Widow followed his order without hesitation. She had been waiting for the command, trusting the orders and eyes of a man she had met scant hours ago. Still, frozen in the Arctic for seventy years and then thrust cold turkey into a whole new world, Steve knew what was going on up above. The goddamn nuke and Stark and Hulk off only God knew where. The portal closed and there was a terrible, empty silence on the comms as they held out one last particle of hope, one that crumbled as no armor came falling out of the sky, no pain in the ass rich man came flying out the the hole to hell. Tony Stark, genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, was dead. Ironman had been destroyed.

_What the Hell?!_ His first thoughts, of course, were not polite, as was to be expected.

"More correctly, it's Hel. You spelt it wrong; though I suppose that since you are not one of mine, I cannot hold you completely accountable for too much." The _because you are too stupid to know better_ was heavily implied. He opened his eyes. Nothing changed. The world around him was the same shade as the inside of his eyelids (very boring, thankyouverymuch and honestly, if they were more interesting he might spend more time sleeping). When he suddenly saw the entirety of the cosmos spread before him, it came as a bit of a shock (5% matter, 95% dark matter his brain supplied automatically). It was always expanding and made of things so incomprehensibly tiny and so surreally vast right next to and on top of each other and for just a moment he saw and understood everything. His purpose (yes, he had one, and his mind gave a great leap of joy at that revelation, because he had been aimless for a long time) and the reasons why of every being in creation, and it was the creation of something so vast and deep that the vast things of before seemed small and the universe was only a speck in its eye. He understood everything and he saw the possibilities of the future and damn him to Hel if they weren't glorious and marvelous and lots of adjectives of that nature but mostly breathtaking in their uncertainty and triumph and despair and then it was gone and the stars were simply very pretty. Even his brain couldn't hold the secrets of the universe and though he remembered his brief experience with omniscience, he wasn't sad it was gone – because he had one piece of knowledge left. Had he been permanently dead, he would have kept his trove, but he was rather attached to Pepper and someone he knew _spoke English_ (FINALLY) and he wasn't ready to hang with the angels just yet.

His eyes opened further, searching for what he had lost, even though he already knew it was a good thing. His suit was offline, he noticed. So no JARVIS, which could be a problem. JARVIS controlled certain functions of the suit and without the AI, he was vulnerable. It was a problem he was working on in his lab, but it hadn't come up before. Now it had. Now he had to deal with it.

His muscles seemed to be in perfect working order, which was odd, because he had encountered a few walls in the fight with the Chitauri and he knew he had at least three pulls. Also, his personal night light seemed to be – off? What the hell?

"I told you – here and now, it is Hel. You poor git, you just can't learn." Now, that was an affront to his intelligence. Tony Stark had never not been able to learn anything he put his mind to (he mostly didn't care). Putting aside the fact that his arc reactor was currently a no go and opening his mouth to tell her that he was _the_ Tony Stark and he could always learn whatever he pleased, he pivoted and saw the speaker for the first time.

Hoo boy. She was gorgeous, as in drop dead, probably more beautiful than anyone he had ever seen. _Even Pepper, _his mind muttered at him. _Still, _he pointed out to himself, _it isn't gonna be a problem._ He agreed with himself. Drop dead gorgeous was a good term for the woman he saw, as half of her was beautiful and the other half was dead. Completely. And rotted, too, not a good look. Her dress was the same way, one half tasteful and elegant and the other half in tatters.

"Where in the multiverse do you find a dress like that? Special order or what?" Of course his mouth spouted out the first nonsense on his mind. Dying hadn't helped his brain to mouth filter any.

"Yes, as a matter of fact. This one was a gift though, so it wasn't my problem. And don't even ask. We have other things to talk about." Having just opened his mouth to ask who was giving her gifts, he closed it automatically. One did not argue with a half-dead lady while floating in space.

"Right. So, am I dead? Standard first question, I'd imagine, but it's a pretty important one."

"No, but you are in limbo at the moment. Sort of." She, Hela, presumably, looked bored. Too bad.

"Must have been a really overused question, then. Hate to be unoriginal. How's this. How is it that you survive with rotting tissue and living tissue on the same body? I'm not a doctor or a biologist but I'm pretty sure that's a no-no. In fact it looks like gangrene. Do you have bad gangrene? In the old days they would just chop off your arm if you got it, fwip, just gone. Bummer for them. Of course, that wasn't very sanitary either b-"

"He mentioned you talked a lot, but I hadn't expected this." Hela was surveying Tony with a kind of amazed boredom. She just seemed bored in general, like she had done this a billion times before, and it never got new. With a flash of intuition Tony expected was from his brief period of Awesome (his mental name for the episode of omniscience and goddamn if that didn't sound like a disease) he knew that she had done this countless times and would do it countless more – like the most neverending factory job in existence. Not that he had ever worked in a factory, of course, but he had heard stories.

"Who's he? Someone important? No, wait, is it Loki? I remember something about you being his kid and a horse and a snake and a wolf or something so if he's your boss please just send me one way or another and don't keep me as like his play toy or something. Preferably send me ba-"

"I challenge you to a duel." Her voice was as dry as could be and more infuriated than Pepper had been when he took her hairdryer for a fusion collider (but it was totally worth it). Her eyes glistened with rage and her hands tightened on a stave she hadn't had before. It was a wooden stick. Unremarkable. Okay?

"Wait what? What did I do? I think I did something wrong but-" This time he was interupted by a small, insignificant sound. Someone was clearing their throat. _He-hem._ He turned around hopelessly, annoyed at not being able to finish yet _another _sentence. Seriously, what was up with that? He was halfway dead and he still couldn't talk all he wanted. Still, not fighting a duel with the Weird Lady Death was good. Stalling was better.

He was taken aback when he saw who stood (semi hovered, really, but hey) before him.

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The problem with being dead is that one no longer controls to whom they report. So after spending years only serving the best of the best who had the best interests of the majority in mind, after playing enormously important roles in multiple wars under multiple leaders and sometimes no leaders at all, and after being turned against by the people who needed to be saved, Dolores Jane Umbridge was the sop of a halfblood Death Wizard. Who knew death could be even worse than life, eh? Still, one must perform one's duty well, and he never sent her to call on wizards from whom she could enlist aid. Only muggles. Muggle after muggle after filthy, ignorant muggle. At least this one was rather dishy.

"Lady Hela, the Master has sent me to take over this..." She looked the man in the dinged and rather dingy metal body armour up and down, "...issue. You are excused." Hela tensed up and glared down – a few feet, as she was tall and Umbridge was...not – and her eyes narrowed.

"Keep in mind, young woman, that you speak with borrowed authority. It is not yours and you have no claim to it. Vex me overmuch and you will not enjoy the result. The Master will not save you from your own folly." Umbridge sniffed haughtily, failing entirely to keep her pallor and fear from showing, and did not blink when Hela disappeared.

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Okay, now what? Short, dumpy and pink had seen Death Lady off after a potentially close shave and someone's master was being annoying for the dead chick. But at least he wasn't fighting a duel with a goddess without a power source. "So who're you, then? And who's your master? Thin ice with Hela methinks, but hey, your funeral. Speaking of, can I go b-"

"My funeral was sparsely attended, a true travesty. It never would have happened under Fudge. He always appreciated me. But the centaurs turned everyone against me and I can't find anyone who hasn't inhaled their filthy half-human ideas."

"...Right. Can I go back?"

"Yes, please. That _is_ why I'm here. Apparently _he_ knew she couldn't do her job." The haughty look was ruined by the fact that she looked like nothing more than a particualrly unhappy toad stuffed into a pink toupe by a little girl. A for effort, definite F minus for execution. "Begone with you, muggle."

The next thing Tony Stark knew, he was staring up into the face of one Captain America who had morphed into Steve Rogers in light of his relief.

Shawarma sounded really good.

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During shawarma, which sounded like an event like during the game or during the movie, Tony asked Thor, casually, nonchalantly, fooling absolutely no one, "Is Hela really sensitive or what?"

Thor looked at him wearily, tired as only a thunder god can be after capturing his brother for a fate of which no one was certain, and saw no reason to be duplicitous.

"I believe the Lady Hela only takes issue with those who mention her status as the daughter of my brother. She is stoic in much else, a true difficulty in enjoying her company. For what purpose do you ask, Man of Iron? Had you met my niece I would not be speaking to you here but in Valhalla."

"You sure about that? We were having a nice conversation before she challenged me to a duel up in limbo. Some pink toad lady came and told her to vamoose and they were both talking about a big boss." By now everyone was staring at the billionaire like he was nuts.

"Had you seen my niece, we would be speaking in Valhalla or in her realm. She does not let the souls of the dead return to their bodies and warriors do not see her save if they are dead. You must be mistaken." Thor looked like he didn't believe a word he said, like this was something he was required to say. Clint on the other hand looked like he had put up with enough crap for one day. He had been possessed and given a concussion and had gone and fought monsters when he probably should have been recovering. Now some rich guy who he actually knew almost zilch about and who was actually really annoying was talking about pink toads and dead people. Yeah. No.

"Not that this isn't fun, but I need to report and clean up. It's been...indescribable." He stood up from the table quickly and regretted it when his head spun and nausea descended on his stomach like a battering ram. He didn't lean on the table, but only because Natasha had stood up with him, anticipating his problem. So instead he leaned on her, the assassin modern art sculpture that any SHIELD artist would kill for.

"That's a no go, Robin Hood. Fury of the 'I have all the resources of a secret government agency and can't afford a glass eye' has decided to offer my tower as the new living space for this motley collection. Jarvis says he's busy anyway, so you can't even report properly." Tony had received the update from Jarvis as he chewed with lackluster enthusiasm at his shawarma.

Clint eyed him unhappily, but it was Romanov who spoke. "Stop watching the Director. Or we'll break something." Tony snorted, not even looking up from fiddling with his phone.

"Try it. And if you manage something, you deserve points. And FYI, he totally started it – it's reciprocal. But the bottom floors of the tower are still pretty much there, so you can crash wherever there's a bed. Or two." And he smirked at the unobtrusive leaning occurring between the two assassins, implying two beds wouldn't be necessary. He gave it up as a bad gig after Romanov looked at him narrowly. He was tired, anyway, after his brush with what he thought was death but turned out to be one of Death's more impressive minions and the unimpressive one, too, though she had sent him back, and so wasn't up to a showdown with the redhead that he mostly hated.

"You lot are invited too," turning to the epitome of patriotism and the thunder god and Bruce. Bruce especially was invited. Hel, he'd come back from the dead for the chance to speak properly for once!


End file.
